Princely fare is fair for forests

Respect to HRH Prince Charles. Not only is he busy using his 'pulling power' to save the rainforests but he is making sure his guests do their bit. Only sustainably-sourced palm oil in the Sainsbury's biscuits (clearly clear out of Duchy Originals), according to the notices in little silver card holders beside the plates. Good.

Have to hand it to HRH Organic champion - the food was delicious. Several guests, stand up do, but not a cold, miniscule, over-worked canope in sight. Just delectable, piping-hot individual cottage pies followed by warm apple crumble and cream. It was, I admit, an up-market crumble scattered over finely chopped spiced apple chunks, rather than the usual squadgy-sitting-in-the-oven-sunday-lunch version. Magog Muffins approved.

Mr November - dark chocolate chunk

Well, we just felt it was chocolate time. Apparently today is the grumpiest day of the year, for which chocolate was invented. Of course, it has to be fairly-traded dark chocolate with not a smidgeon of added palm oil. We chop our own choc so the chips are more like chunks. Introducing then, our choice for Mr. November - your very own Dark Chocolate Chunk.

(posted today to warm up @BugJemm and other chilled out tea-drinking twitterers)

Two minutes to midnight feast

At Magog Muffins we signed up to Blog Action Day - bloggers around the world drawing attention to climate change as the world tries to decide what we need to do about it. We have timed this at two minutes to midnight on blog action day, as the climate clock is ticking and we are, metaphorically speaking, already at two minutes to midnight.

Our contribution is muffins with a low carbon footprint. Eggs produced within a few hundred yards of our kitchen. Flour grown and ground in our county. Butter from cows grazed in the county. Apples, carrots and whatever else is in season grown and picked from our own garden or those of friends. And where we can't source them locally our ingredients are organic and fairly traded. So enjoy your midnight muffin feast - guilt-free.

Cappuccino caressssssssssssssssss

Oh boy, are we pleased with this one. Not absolutely neccessary to combine with a creamy cappuccino, but it does make the perfect complement. A warm burst of coffee muffin, topped with a smidgeon of fragile frosting and sprinkled with a few slivers of dark chocolate.

We are confident of course in the credentials of the chocolate - dark, fairly traded and not a hint of palm oil. Confidence in the coffee was a touch more troubling - until we discovered the Coffee and Conservation blog which keeps us up to date on everything our ethical sensibilities need to know. A taster (from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, First Sustainable Coffee Congress overview paper - imagine, a whole conference on sustainable coffee!):

"Sustainable coffee is produced on a farm with high biological diversity and low chemical inputs. It conserves resources, protects the environment, produces efficiently, competes commercially and enhances the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole."

So, guilt free pleasure is possible..... but don't get too comfortable on your caffeine cloud. Checkout how much caffeine would be 'enough' (For Magog Muffin Maestro it came out at 111.10 cups of brewed coffee taken all at once. Hmmmm, safe for now.... maybe the cappuccino muffins soften the impact anyway).

Oh, and watch out for our 'beverage beauties' planned for November.... a pack of Lemon Tea, Hot Chocolate (with traces of chilli) and Cappuccino to chase away the winter blues......

Muffin Poetry Award for Palm oil free campaigner

The forest on the left in the north of Sumatra Island is storing carbon and other ecosystem services, providing habitat for orang utans and other creatures, as well as livelihoods for people living nearby. The palm oil plantation on the right has knocked out this biodiversity, destroyed the ecoystem services and slewed the local economy.

Haiku competition panel have awarded the Muffin prize to twitterer @kusasi for his ethical content - congratulations Neil (and his palm-oil-free website)

paper overflows
sweet sponge chocolate or fruit
palm oil free goodness

Runner up is the double Haiku offered by twitterer @miametro (and her lovely photography)

you should take flavour
suggestions - PB&J
definitely yum!

or maybe perhaps
a bit more traditional
cherry almond, NOM.

Magog Muffins is struggling slightly with the concept of peanut butter and jelly flavour........ but thinking of trying this for a Fourth of July offering or in celebration of Barak Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. All flavour suggestions very welcome here in our ecokitchen - please use comment form (or tell us on twitter @MagogMuffins). If we take any up we will gladly send you a sample from the first batch out of the oven.

And that guest judge? He declined to be named this time around, but might reveal himself if we run another competition next National Poetry Day (perhaps combine with a tweet up eat up?)

No orang utans were harmed in the making of these muffins....

No, the orang utan is not munching a Magog Muffin but neither are the muffins metaphorically munching orang utans. The eponymous seed of the 'Oil palm' is finding its way into so much of our diet and orang utan forest is being chomped up by acres of oil palm plantations, beating out the biodiversity. To make sure no palm oil gets into the goodies that we pack into the muffins we monitor the "no palm oil" site (follow on twitter @kusasi) and check concerns on any ingredients back with manufacturers. One of the main culprits is chocolate so we are watching that closely and enjoying palm-oil free enterprise such as the Chokolit Company. So 'Double chocolate' muffin, although not calorie-free can at least be conscience-free. Ethical eating and happy orang utans is what we mean by ethical good taste.

















(Thanks to @AvelingArtworks for permission to use this painting of "Riang" - a name which means 'happy' in Bahasa Indonesia)